


Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

by savanting



Category: Mulan (2020)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, One Shot, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:26:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26374927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savanting/pseuds/savanting
Summary: Xian Lang knows the cost of a life; she has the blood on her hands to prove it. One-Shot.
Relationships: Fa Mulan & Xian Lang (Disney)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39





	Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any Disney properties. This is another Xian Lang fic because her character hurts me in just the right way, all in the feels. You can imagine this is the spiritual sister to my fic _Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night_ even though you don't have to read that one to understand this one.
> 
> The title comes from a line in the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas.

There were few things Xian Lang knew better than the sound of screams.

Whatever words others might have thrown at her – _witch, sorceress, temptress_ – she could easily silence them with just a swift move with her talons. It wasn’t once or twice that her claws brushed against a beating heart: the moments were innumerable, perhaps as many as the stars in the sky, and then the silence that followed always made her give pause.

_”Monster,”_ her father had called her. _”My daughter is a monster!”_

He was the one who had handed her over, so long ago, to waiting soldiers who wanted nothing more than to slice her throat and watch the life die within her eyes.

Whenever she faced men now, she pictured those soldiers’ faces and remembered how cold they had made her feel inside. To them, a witch was inhuman. To them, her power was an unholy attribute.

It was her power that had saved her from their swords. It was her power that had allowed her to be free.

_”She has a demon’s eyes,”_ Bori Khan’s band of nomads whispered amongst themselves. _”Don’t get too close: she’ll suck your soul out from your body without a second thought.”_

When Xian Lang heard them, she would cast her gaze to the nearest group – who halted in their conversation as if she had turned them to stone – and smile as if they had just said something amusing. Then she would leave them, shifting skins mid-step into the form of a bird of prey.

There were many advantages to her shape-shifting abilities, but this one above all: when she was a bird, she need only use instinct rather than thought. A human skin was just another weight to bear.

The night sky beckoned with its wide expanse, and Xian Lang did nothing to resist its call into the great unknown.

*

The scent of blood clung to Xian Lang as if she had bathed in cursed waters. It was another skirmish that had done it – petty little squabble amongst nomads and thieves – and Bori Khan had waved her off to enact her usual prowess. She did not need to be told twice: within minutes, the men who had tried to rob Khan’s circle lay bleeding on the ground, all of them dead or in the process of dying. And she had just looked at her talons in distaste, as if the blood had insulted her by staining her skin in hues of rust.

“You never fail to impress,” the nomadic leader said, a feral grin on his face. Her mood darkened to see that smile, as if she were something to be proud of, a pet who had done a trick on command.

_And you never fail to disgust,_ she thought. But she just bowed her head to him before shifting skins and taking flight anew.

The cycle of death continued as the days progressed, as Bori Khan’s plan grew more solid in its thirst for vengeance, as the rumors of “a bloodthirsty witch” traveled farther than even the news of a coming war between the empire and its nomadic people.

Xian Lang told herself she was just stirring up trouble for the empire that had rejected her so long ago; she could disappear at any time she wanted. There were no stakes here for her.

But she was lying. Every single day, she had to face the reality: somehow, along the way, her father’s words had become her truth.

_Monster_ was probably too kind a word, if she could admit it.

*

“Witch.”

The word fell from the girl’s mouth with a thud on Xian Lang’s expectations. Xian Lang could not help but smile back as the girl’s hands shook around the hilt of her sword.

“Do you think you can harm me?” Xian Lang asked. “With that tiny blade? Men with swords longer than your arm couldn’t even cut me down.”

She stalked closer as the girl retreated, her back nearly against a cliff wall. “I’m not afraid of you!”

“Oh,” Xian Lang murmured, “but I think you are.”

Then, before the girl could react, Xian Lang had grasped the hilt of the sword and twisted it out of the girl’s hands. The girl cried out in pain before her knees gave out from underneath her body.

Xian Lang held up the sword to the murky light sifting through the fog. “What a fine sword,” she said, admiring the weight of it and how easily it moved through the air. “Only true warriors should wield it.”

The girl stared up at her with a gaze full of visceral emotion. Xian Lang was certain that the girl would have charged her right then – if Xian Lang wasn’t much more a master with her _qi_ than the girl was.

But this girl – she had potential. If it had been any other time, Xian Lang might have offered to teach her how to channel her _qi_ most effectively.

The girl before her now, however, would have nothing to do with such a proposal. It was the stubbornness in her, as well as the naiveté of her youth, and Xian Lang could respect those things.

“You hide yourself behind the mask of a warrior,” Xian Lang said, “but who are you, really? Do you even know the answer to that?”

“I’m no one you should be concerned with,” the girl said, her voice trembling. But her fear did not show in the determined lines of her face.

“Oh, I highly doubt that,” Xian Lang said. “You are very concerning indeed.”

“What do you want from me?” the girl asked. “Why aren’t you killing me?”

Xian Lang made a _tut, tut_ sound. “That would be such a waste,” she said. “And I don’t enjoy killing women. There’s something I don’t like about their screams.”

“I am a soldier in the Imperial Army—”

“Only because you have _lied_ to get yourself there,” Xian Lang said, her voice cutting. “Take it from me: there’s no place for a woman in the world of men – unless you want to be a servant or a bedmate.”

The girl just stared at her with those disdainful eyes, and Xian Lang’s regard for her grew a bit more.

Then the witch made a decision: she threw the sword to the ground before the girl, who looked up with surprise.

“Go,” Xian Lang said. “If I ever see you on the battlefield again, I _will_ be the one to kill you.”

_And I’ll try to relish your screams before you die._

Before the girl could grasp the sword and raise it up in attack or defense, Xian Lang’s body shifted into that of a bird and departed in the mist.

*

_I’m dying._

The thoughts were faint, but Xian Lang might have voiced them aloud. It was getting harder to breathe with the arrow jutting out of her chest.

_So this is how it ends._

But then she opened her eyes to see the girl – the one who had masqueraded as a soldier – looking down at her with what could only be pity.

Xian Lang wanted to snarl at her: _”How dare you of all people be here to witness my death. How dare you look at me with those eyes. How dare you look at me as if you actually care what happens to me.”_

But she could barely breathe. Words took too much effort.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said, and she did look sorry – for what, Xian Lang had no idea.

There weren’t many moments left, the witch could feel, but she did know one thing: she didn’t want to die in such a sorry state.

“Sing,” the word trembled from Xian Lang’s lips. The girl’s eyes widened, her expression confused. “Sing – for . . . me.”

Xian Lang didn’t know at first if the girl had heard her, but then the next moment she heard the soft murmurs of a voice that quaked like a fledgling bird.

Xian Lang didn’t know if the song was a lullaby or a dirge. Either way, it didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that she could close her eyes and imagine her mother singing to her at night. She couldn’t remember her mother’s face, but her voice? It was an imprint on her memory. Just as it was with the last embrace she had felt. Just as she was sure she would remember this girl beyond any tethers of life.

And so it was that Xian Lang learned just how easy it was to die.


End file.
